Janko Timmermann

Deriving design guidelines for ambient light systems

Recent interest in the development of ambient light systems has initialized a new research area, where the number of ambient light systems is expected to increase in the next years. To support the development of future ambient light systems, we need clear, explicit, and structured design guidelines. In this paper we present an evaluation of light patterns in a controlled laboratory study with two complementary parts. In the first part, our aim was to reveal and analyze light patterns that encode different types of everyday information. In the second part, we verified the results from the first part by asking another group of participants about their understanding of information encoded with light. Together, our results allowed us to establish light patterns and guidelines for building new ambient light systems and applications in the future.

Input methods for the Borg-RPE-scale on smartwatches

The assessment of the perceived exertion during physical activity can be a valuable addition to a healthy training. Modern smartwatches provide a good opportunity to asses the perceived exertion, but entering information is quite challenging due to the very small displays. In this paper, we present an evaluation of five different input methods for entering the perceived exertion on the Borg-RPE scale on smartwatches. Our evaluation shows that speech input is inappropriate for entering the rating while using ranges is promising.

HapticPulse --- reveal your heart rate in physical activities

The heart rate is an objective parameter indicating the current physical activity. Displaying it to the user will help her or him to gain awareness of the physical load during certain activities. Current systems do not use the sense of touch to display the actual heart rate. Using the sense of touch has been shown to be potentially less distracting than using other senses in certain situations. In this paper we describe a system which displays the heart rate of the user using the sense of touch. We conducted a user study in the field with ten participants to collect qualitative and quantitative data, which serves as a guideline for the future improvement of such systems.

Supporting running groups as a whole

Running in groups is a common activity since it is more motivating and interesting for the runners. However, nowadays technical support systems generally support only single users and are not tailored for the use in running groups. In this paper, we analyze the context of group running with the help of an expert for running beginners. We identify three communication channels and analyze their roles for the technical support of group running.

LightWatch: A Wearable Light Display for Personal Exertion

Wearable devices need to seamlessly integrate into everyday life and meet a user’s aesthetic needs. In this paper, we present LightWatch, a wearable light display integrated into a common analogue wristwatch without interfering with the functionality of the watch itself. Input is enabled through a pressure-sensitive bezel mounted beneath the light display. LightWatch shall raise body awareness by enabling sensor-based measurement, adjustment and display of a user’s personal exertion level. We see LightWatch as a promising approach for an unobtrusive everyday companion that can be used for various applications.

Lumicons: Mapping Light Patterns to Information Classes

Comunicacio presentada a la Mensch und Computer 2015, conferencia celebrada del 6 al 9 de setembre de 2015 a Stuttgart, Alemanya.

Human centered training: perceived exertion as main parameter for training adaption

Regular physical activity is important for a healthy lifestyle. The physical activity should be performed with the right individual intensity. Today it is common to use the heart rate as indicator for the optimal individual training intensity, but the subjective intensity of the trainee is not considered. In this paper we present an approach which focuses on the perceived exertion of the trainee and helps to reach and keep a user-defined intensity level.

TimedNavigation: a time-based navigation approach

Travelers sometimes need to reach a destination in a given amount of time. However, todays navigation systems try to route users to the destination as fast as possible. In this paper, we present the concept of time-based pedestrian navigation. We use a map on a smartphone that highlights streets depending on whether they will lead to a destination in time. Our map also allows the users to choose between route alternatives during the walk.

Proximity sensor: privacy-aware location sharing

In this paper we report on a participatory design study with young girls. Our goal was to create a mobile phone app to display the spatial proximity of friends in an abstract and privacy-aware manner. A group of 16 girls worked along the user-centred design process to create initial paper-based designs of an app that respects ones friends privacy while displaying their proximity to allow for spontaneous meetings or re-grouping after separation. Our participants created very promising results which we intend to implement and evaluate further against a broader audience.

Exploring Social Awareness: A Design Case Study in Minimal Communication

Computer-mediated communication technology is ubiquitous in today»s society. However, the design of these technologies often takes a screen-based approach and requires users to adopt new usage conventions. While these methods have been widely successful in helping individuals communicate, we take a step back in this paper and explore the design implications of a simpler tangible system for keeping in touch. This system consists of a pair of artificial electronic flowers, which connect and transmit information to each other. Our contribution is not in the actual implementation, but rather in the design implications that follow. In our modest evaluation we found participants using our system in informal, relaxed and sometimes novel ways.